Hope Dies First
by Kirke
Summary: ListerRimmer slash. 'They came because despite everything, he was still a part of the team.'


**Title: **Hope Dies First

**Characters: **Arnold Rimmer/David Lister

**Word Count: **891

**Rating: **PG

**Author's Notes: **Spoilers to _Terrorform_ and_ Rimmerworld_ Unbetaed.

They say that hope dies last.

They are wrong of course, because, actually, hope dies as the first one, it's just people too easily confuse immunity to death with the ability to resurrect. One word, memory, one thought and what was once dead can be alive again.

* * *

Rimmer's Hope's grave had been a shallow one, there was no point in wasting time and effort to make something that you knew perfectly well, might have never been of any use. It's a very hard job to kill hope permanently, sometimes it takes years of loneliness and violence… but sometimes a single 'no' is enough.

Actually, it's an irony how his Hope got it in the end. Usually, the hope flied high, so the impact always leaved a bloody mess on the floor, after all the higher they are, the harder they fall but in Rimmer's case, her existence had reminded more of crawling than anything else. She was small, she was nobody, no one had ever taken her seriously, she should had known better. She died because she forgot her place.  
For those few wonderful, horrible minutes nothing else mattered except for that overwhelming feeling of happiness when she realized, that she could touch the sky. That was exactly what killed her; too high, too free, too damn reckless. If she stayed down like she always had, she would still be with him, guiding him through his sleepless nights and nightmares full of monsters, whispering that it could have been worse, that at least he had her.

He remembered that back then, naked and tortured by no other than his own Self-loathing, while he kept thinking that that was it– he had met his doom, no one would save him but first, he would suffer, like he hadn't in his entire life (and, considering what he had been through, it meant really suffer) she was still with him.

Turned out she had been right all along. To his utter shock and amazement the others came and for the first time since he was twelve, Self-loathing had to back off. Like a bunch of knights in their shining amours they saved his worthless life, their damsel in distress. He couldn't help but laugh- his brothers were right when they made him play the Queen of Spain; poor, little Rimsy, never could take care of himself, always someone had to come and rescue him. In that moment, he really became a part of the team, the three musketeers and the Queen of Spain, only that this time he wasn't afraid to end up tied to a pole covered with jam and waiting for the ants to come.

He begun to hope that things would change from now on and when they came to him, telling him how much they loved him, how much he meant to them, he dared to be happy. He couldn't understand later, how could he became so naive, after all Mistrust had always been there for him, hadn't he? He was a fool and a big one. He could only blame himself, what did he expect, that they really meant all those things? How stupid he was? He let Hope grew wing, he let her fly and in the end he was the one that killed her. This time her grave wasn't the shallow one, it was as deep as any other.

He had no hope left.

* * *

Rimmer couldn't help but wonder sometimes, was this his ultimate punishment, his final penalty for all the lives his negligence had destroyed on Red Dwarf. The justice had found him in the end and, while officially he had been imprisoned for being The First Rimmer, sometimes he could swear he could hear their voices- the crew was there, laughing at him, mocking, pointing their fingers.  
He was sure he'd go insane if he hadn't had already. When he saw the guys, his brain didn't even register them. For him, they were just some new prisoners, he had seen plenty of those in the past, he didn't even dreamed to consider that this could be them.

Yet, once again, they came to rescue him.

After all that he had done, after he abandoned them, left them on their own, knowing perfectly well that they could died, they were here. They came because despite everything, he was still a part of the team.

* * *

Lister's kisses were passionate, his touch intoxicating and words full of promises. He caressed him, like it was the most natural thing in the universe, like they weren't Lister and Rimmer, two accidental team-mates but Dave and Arn, friends and lovers.

Afterwards, when Rimmer cuddled himself at the top of the other human's chest, listening to the other man's soothing voice and trying to recall things he had forgotten decades ago, the hologram felt something in his chest. Back then, he thought that perhaps it was simply the overflow of emotions, after all, he had dreamed about this moment for over five hundred years.

Few days later, as the whole team sat together at the table, chatting idly about nothing and everything, he caught Lister's eye. The human smiled and winked at him, and it that exact second Rimmer understood what was it that he felt, after he had made love with Lister for the first time.

She was flying again.


End file.
